Hateful Fish, Harry Potter and Self Promotion
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Halloween Cookies
Boo.
As the month of October is ending tomorrow I am going to open with an obligatory money shot of Halloween cookies.
Full disclosure...I hate making cutout cookies. Wait. Let me say that again. I hate decorating cut out cookies. Everything up to that point I love. There are far too many other people out there who can make a cut out cookie look like art. I personally love my drop cookies. Chocolate chip cookies to be exact. They are my favorite. But above you will see some Halloween sugar cookies with a powdered sugar glaze frosting. I toiled aaaaaaalllll day in the kitchen for Boyfriend (it had nothing to do with the fact that football season is upon us and the TV is no longer available for my usual Sunday TBS marathon of Mean Girls or Forrest Gump). The cookies are for his coworkers at The Lab. Thankfully he can still take home baked goods to work unlike the poor elementary students of today. After the cookies I whipped up a couple loaves of sandwich bread and then shackled myself to the stove to make us dinner. That's what I did today. Fully ignoring the mountain of paperwork on the desk. Well played Benjamin.
Hateful Red Snapper
Now it has been a month since my last post. I have eaten, I have used my kitchen and I have even been gainfully employed in the food styling industry! The last month has been very busy working on a couple projects. I was very lucky to be called in on a Thanksgiving shoot for an online ad. I worked with some very talented food stylists who taught me a lot about the world of turkeys, mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. After a few days off, some travel with Boyfriend and some time with the mannequins at the mall I got called by another studio to work on a grilling cookbook.
I have to admit that Just J (Dad) and sometimes Just Joni did most of the grilling back at the compound when I was young. I learned A LOT on this job. I learned that Korean Style Ribs can really only be found where your butcher is over the age of 50. I learned how to scale a fish. Red Snapper scales are still falling out of my clothes and backpack. I also learned that Red Snapper can leave the tip of your finger mildly numb weeks after it pierces it. And I learned that no amount of air freshener and driving with your windows down gets the smell of Snapper juice out of your poor little Honda Civic. Thankfully baking soda and 162 fresh baked hamburger buns got the smell out. I grilled a lot. But not as much as the lead food stylist. She was a grilling machine and was kind enough to give tutorials as she went along. Call me Hank Hill and get me a propane tank.
Pulled Chicken Hoagie
This last month included some meals out. I found myself in Duluth a few weekends back for a baby shower and Just Joni, Sister and myself enjoyed a great dinner at Clyde Iron in Duluth. Pictured above is the very tasty Pulled Chicken Hoagie with spicy pico de gallo, cilantro lime aioli and avocado. The fries were pretty much inhaled.
The following week I attended Finer Films Club with Finer Films Club co founder, D.
Finer Films meets about once a month to see a really bad film that our respective boyfriends/friends/family and general movie going public might ridicule us about. This month we picked the final Harry Potter film. Neither one of us had seen anything after the first in the series. If you also have not seen the whole franchise just check out the last one. You'll get caught up I think. Back to food. Finer Films started its evening at the Longfellow Grill in Minneapolis. I enjoyed a well made dijon chicken sandwich and glass of wine. I would share the photo but it was pretty bad on my part. And I took it before the wine was gone.
Last night Boyfriend and I entertained at home. I would have dinner guests a couple nights a week if I could. Last night we invited SAGL, Baby Doctor and Bone Doctor (they're a couple). I realized late on Friday that I had all the makings of a mini Thanksgiving in my pantry. So I threw together a stuffed roasted turkey breast (sadly Baby Doc is a veg so she only got to dine on the super dry extra stuffing - my apologies BD!), mashed potatoes and a pumpkin pie. Thankfully SAGF and The Doc's brought wine to share. We all had a great time and even left room to binge on some chocolate chip cookies (see above).
So I have to wrap up. Tomorrow I'm working as an assistant on a project that involves some attention in the kitchen. On a final note though I would like to share that a very long awaited project that I worked on has finally hit the stands. Please feel free to take a peek here or at your local bookstore very soon! Now you don't have to do this, but if you "click to look inside" you can see my name. With that self promotion I am going to bed. Good night and Happy Halloween (or Happy Ms. Stewart Day - girl really loves Halloween!).